Stop!

 

In this busy world that we live in in which life runs at break neck speed and we have all the information we could possibly need at our finger tips (thanks Google) it can be very easy to kept swept away by it all. Everyday life can become a series of  connected patterns and rituals. You get up each morning having set the alarm for the same time each week day, shower, get changed, grab breakfast, then leave for work at the same time each day. They just become integral parts to our day and become so embeded, due to their frequent use, that you don't even give them much thought anymore. You just do them semi automatically, drawing on muscle memory. Going through the motions as they say.

 

 

However while having these patterns are effective and necessary living life in a constant pattern or as though you are following a check list it can also push out emotion. So every now and again it's really important to say stop! Stop the ride. And do a spotcheck to ask yourself some important questions.

 

Am I happy?

 

When was the last time I felt truly happy?

 

When was the last time I had a really good laugh?

 

Do I have good friendships?

 

Do I feel supported?

 

Do I feel loved? (not just romantic love)

 

Questions that get lost in all that daily grind but questions that we need to ask ourselves from time to time.

 

 

Hopefully the answer will be yes. But if it isn't then it's time to start asking yourself why? Why aren't you as happy as you perhaps should be? Perhaps the answer is something simple or maybe it's something a bit more life changing. Either way there's some decisions to be made and a good deal of thinking time. But you know when it comes to investing in your happiness it's certainly worth the time. And if you don't think so well then think about that too. Because unless you're a really really terrible person (and I'm talking the really bad stuff) then you deserve to be happy.

 

Sian x

Love February

 

First of all have you seen my new blog banner? Talk about love. Thank you so much to the fabulous Charlotte for creating this illustration. Her blog is http://mookpixie-chronicills.blogspot.co.uk/, so go check it out.

 

February is the month we most assossciate with love. Although I could argue that December is more worthy of the title with it being the month of spending Christmas with family and friends and showing them how much you care. But anyhow... February is still a month when love in all it's red roses and heart shaped ballooned glory is celebrated.

 

Following on from my January blues series of posts on mental health I wanted February to be a month of facing those issues raised in my January posts and deal with a love that many of us forget about. And that is the love we have for ourselves. Sound arrogant? Well no, this is not about arrogance it's about self confidence and self worth. Sound cheesy? Ye, maybe. But loving ourselves is important and can trigger a deeper sense of wellbeing.

 

And it's not about being selfish. Because actually although you need to think about yourself, being generous and devoting times to others can promote that sense of well being. As long as it's done genuinely of course.

 

So things will be getting a bit warm and fuzzy around these parts (and oh boy does that sound wrong). I'll be chatting confidence, self worth as well as some fun posts on things to do to to promote happiness for yourself and others.

 

I'd love to know what you do to make yourself feel good. Or what makes you feel more confident.  Leave me a comment.

 

Take care everyone

 

Sian x

Body confidence

 

Last week I spoke about ending the awkward when it came to interacting with disabled people. Today I'm saying end the awkward with yourself. Today I want to post about body confidence. Confidence takes time and is rather like a plant it needs to be nutured and given patience as it grows. It also needs constant reassurance and care. It's a process. One that will soar at times but also be knocked down at others. But for me I think body confidence does not just stem from having the body of a model (and we know that model bodies aren't representative of real bodies); but also having a healthy relationship with your head/mind. Yes I'm talking mental health.

 As I said in my body image post sometimes it's our psychology and thoughts that are the last thing to change when we are actively trying to change our body shape. So used are we to being negative about our bodies and perhaps suffering from low self esteem. Comparing ourselves to others, especially what we see in magazines and on tv. 

 

Personally, I have suffered from low self esteem and lacked confidence for much of my later teens. My relationship to my body though was pretty non plussed. I didn't particularly care what I looked like and didn't have much knowledge of what fashions suited my body shape. To be honest I think it was due to me trying to maintain good mental health. So focused was I on trying to be happy and find new goals. I spoke in my body image post about having to stop athletics and horse riding and I could only manage a few hours of school a week. So life felt completely flipped upside down as did my confidence. To be honest I was angry that my body no longer worked as it had. So my concerns were more based on wanting a body that worked not how it looked.

Of course I'm very much in a similar position now. I would love my body to work better and not be so broken. But at the same time I'm appreciative of the things my body does let me do. And I take more of an interest now into my appearance. Not in a pinching the flab and wrapping a tape measure around my waist every day kind of way. But in dressing up and making an effort with my appearance when I can. Now I love to buy clothes and to experiment more with my style. I used to have to dress all in black and be more masculine in my combats and steel toe caps for work but now my wardrobe is really girly. If you saw my holiday lookbook you'll see that I  love floral prints and dresses. 

 

Not long ago I met my new hairdresser who is just an amazing lady. As well as working freelance she also has set up a salon in a local mental health ward. She teaches the ladies and men there that sometimes taking pride and care into our physical appearance can make a difference to our mental state. They can pop in to the salon for a bit of pampering  or learn how to do their own hair and make up. It might sound trivial and I know at the darkest points of mental illness appearance takes no presidence, but for people in recovery it's yet another tool to add to help you get better. Sometimes it's as simple as having someone there and giving you attention. She's been in talks to set up similar schemes in other units.

So as much as people focus on making physical changes it's just as important, if not more so, to focus on the mental aspects. If reading magazines slating peoples bodies depresses you then stop reading them. If you hate going to the gym then don't go. Find a way to exercise that you enjoy and makes you feel good. It might be riding a bike or it might be pole dancing. The point is enjoy getting the body you want (if that's what you want). 

 

Obviously for my chronic illness friends who find themselves unable to exercise but don't feel particularly body confident then work on building your confidence in other ways. Try to eat healthily, give your body the right nutrients. Wear your favourite clothes. Pamper yourself. Just painting your nails can give you a little lift. Or a slick of lippy. Lipstick Tuesday anyone? Okay it won't change your body shape but you'll be a bit happier about it. At the moment I feel like I've put on a bit of weight with needing to spend more time in bed. I can tell by how tight some of my clothes have become. But what can I expect when doing even less? And it's important to keep eating for energy, as you already have precious little of it. I like to remember that my body has a lot to contend with, every day it hurts in some way and feels attacked. So knowing it's going through a hard time I don't like to mentally torture it too. The same goes for any Mum's out there who's bodies have changed after child birth. Remember the amazing things that your body has done. It's carried a baby and provided somewhere safe for them to grow until they were ready to be born. Your body has nurtured them whilst in the womb and perhaps afterwards if you have breast fed your child. 

So everybody your homework is to focus on being happy. Not all the time obviously. Being sad is okay too. But learn to be happy within your self and who you are. If you can do that you are doing yourself a big favour. 

Sian x

All images are from Pinterest

Body image

As I think I have mentioned just a few times I am off on my holidays soon, huzzah! I know for so many people the thought of going on a Summer holiday can really make them self conscious and send them into a panic about needing to look their best. And yes looking your best whilst on holiday can make you feel fantastic. However being too hung up about revealing your body on the beach can really eat away at people. For months now my feeds have been full of statuses about 'getting a bikini body' and it's the same every year. As well as plenty of statuses about how much they need to deprive themselves. And a lot of the time it's from the most gorgeous looking of girls.

To be honest it makes me feel a little bit sad. I look at them and think "look at you, you're stunning." But that's kind of the point; we will always judge ourselves more than anyone else will. It's just something we all do. Which I think is very naughty of our brains really. And so every year we see these statuses, or we hear our friends talking about what they're cutting out (sometimes literally) in order to look 'acceptable' on the beach.

What's worrying is that people will turn to fads and unhealthy solutions long before they will even consider eating healthier or excercising (M.E folk you know I don't mean you when I say the e word.) I swear if I get one more friend request from people selling juice plus! Gah! Juice Plus will not change my life. Changing our thinking habits just might though.

I know some people might say "oh well that's easy for you to say, you're slim," but again that's projecting this image of what we think a beach body is. In my early teens when I stopped running and horse riding from cysts on my ovaries and problems with my bowels I put on quite a lot of weight. I look back now and think "jeez, I had no idea I was that big." But in a way that's a good thought, because it means that at the time I wasn't constantly bullying myself that I no longer had a six pack. The only time I remember being affected by it was ringing up to say I couldn't do a youth theatre thing and them saying "oh is that big Sian." Ouch! And that was me completely done with them. But I lost the weight as a bi-product of being able to do more as my illness improved and over a few years; not because of that comment. 

A few years ago the round table came round our neighbourhood with Father Christmas on his sleigh and when he asked me what I wanted for Christmas, I replied that I wanted a new body. He said "but why when you're beautiful". Well thank you but what I would like is a body that worked much better. Because when you are chronically ill and disabled you start to appreciate your body on a whole new level. Your focus is more on how your body works and how much I guess you took for granted just what a good job it was doing. As I have said, health is wealth. A healthy body allows you to have everyday adventures and things we consider basic like walking around the shops, driving, playing with our children. You start to think "who cares what my body looks like when I'd rather it still could do those things."  And other than the fact it doesn't work properly I'm pretty happy with my body. In fact I'm just happy, even with all the rubbish I face every moment of every day.

Often people work so hard to lose weight or tone up but the last thing they do is change their thinking. Someone who has lost weight might still look in the mirror and still see their old shape. Often we don't fully appreciate it until someone else comments on it. Which in a way is sad as this is the body you've been telling yourself you wanted. Our thinking though is still so used to looking in the mirror and being negative or focusing in on what we think are our problem areas, that we can't switch off from that. So if you do want to lose weight, tone up or even if you feel you need to gain weight look at ways to monitor that change and adapt your thinking.

I also want to share this link to an article in Cosmopolitan UK about a woman having the confidence to wear a bikini after an emergency surgery to remove her spleen. It's motivational stuff, so do give it a look dont-apologise-wear-bikini. And recently I have seen a few similar stories floating around on social media. I read one last night about a group of young people insulting a woman who was sunbathing and had stretch marks on her belly. She of course got upset that people would so blatantly insult her. However the post was about how in fact she was proud of her body. Those stretch marks were as a result of pregnancy and reminded her of the wonder of having children and how much joy that bought her. Then there are the stories about Instagram deleting bikini photos for not being deemed attractive; read more here. The rise of people showing off their feeding tubes and bags and sharing them on social media, which personally I think is great for awareness of stomach and inflammatory bowel conditions, you go ladies and gents! Then of course there was the stories about photos being removed of women that had had mastectomies, around the time of breast cancer awareness month. Where it seemed a no make up selfie was deemed a sufficient way to promote breast cancer care and awareness but not cancer patients showing that they are still beautiful despite all the horrors they faced. Celebrate your bodies ladies! 

So my message is simple. Love your bodies. Look after them, treat them well. And if you do want to make a change then do so out of love not hate and do so healthily. I'm going to leave you with some positive quotes to help motivate you and hopefully I will do more posts on body confidence soon. Cue lots of shameless holiday snaps!

Be good to yourselves

Sian x